A lurker’s 1st post

Welcome to the forum Dennis, all my machine tools except the wood and metal lathes are on castors and are moved around to suit the job in hand.

Glad you decided to jump in. I'm attaching my 17 things pdf, which has a lot of things that may be of interest. I lived in OC from '72 to 2003, worked on a couple of papers there. Was more rural then, very crowded now, the few times I've been back.

I've attached a pdf of the 17 plus things that helped me accelerate my learning curve. It is the most recent updated version. it's long, but has pictures.

My first table saw was pretty much the same as yours. Worked fine for the most part. I'd suggest you make your own shop stands, with doors and/or drawers to hold tools and other items so they're available but out of sight.

Dust collection is a first order of business. If you're going to use a shop vac, get a good sized one with a 2.5 inch hose. If you can, get a Dust Deputy to install on top of a modest bucket or trash can. It will keep the sawdust going into the shop vac's filter so you won't have to replace it so often. For what you're doing, it will help. But I'd also urge you to get a decent dust mask and wear it all the time you're in the shop. Woodworking produces lots of sawdust and that stuff will ruin your lungs pretty fast, and a simple DC system will help, but the sawdust will still mount up.

You are furtunate in having access to two woodworking stores in OC, a Rockler in Orange near the traffic circle, the other is Woodcraft in Huntington Beach, on Talbert near the 405. You can get good wood at Ganahl Lumber on Ball Road in Anaheim, not too far from the Stadium.

I suggest that for your case work, you go to Ganahl and get some Baltic Birch plywood. It is a little more expensive than Home Depot ply, but the quality is vastly superior and it has a nice finish. It comes in 5ft square sheets. Keep Baltic Birch out of the sun or it will turn yellow. It costs near the same as a 4x8 sheet of the best ply you can get from HD, but once you use BB ply, you won't bother with the HD stuff. BB ply has many layers and all the voids have been filled so you don't get gaps on the edges.

Get a Wixey digital angle gauge today, before you make any cases. All it takes is a half a degree off 90 and your cases won't glue up straight. Check the blade angle every time you adjust anything on your saw. It is about $30 on Amazon. You might also want to check into the Kreg pocket screw system for case assembly. It makes it easy to do (and the perfect 90 is critical) and helps square up your cases. It is especially good for making face frames to finish off your case work and hide the plywood edge. I like the K4 kit a little better than the K5 kit, and it is a little cheaper. If you use pocket hole construction, get the square head screws rather than the phillips head screws, drive much easier. Use fine threads for hardwood, coarse for pine and soft woods.

I did a more or less built-in book case/TV unit for my living room, using pretty much the same tools you have, plus the extras I mentioned. The bottom are commercial grade cabinets (wasn't confident enought back then to make my own), with two 33 inch wide by 44 inches high. The whole thing is 10 feet across with room for a 50 inch TV in the middle. The top of the cabinets were covered first with HD's glued up pine panels, covered with Pergo flooring. The book cases are attached on top of that. Measured side to side and top to bottom, the installed book cases are within 1/16th of square. That's mainly because of careful cutting (thank you Wixie) and using pocket screw construction, which pulls square cuts into square assemblies.

Another thing I recommend you get is a Rockler clear plastic draftsman's triangle. I has both 90 and 45 degree angles and is large enough so you can use it to square up your miter gauge with the blade. Cheap miter gauges markings are notoriously off. And attach a small cutoff strip of baltic birch ply to the miter to support your cuts. This "fence" is disposable. You want the fence to extend past the blade so it cuts through your workpiece into the fence. This will prevent tear out.

Final item. I now leave one blade in my saw all the time, a Freud Industrial Glue Line blade. You can get this at Rockler. It makes a baby butt smooth cut, ready for gluing. It has both angled and flat teeth so you can use it to make grooves and rabbets by making repeated passes. It produces a nice flat bottom. It is really a rip blade, but the crosscuts are great as well. It comes in a wide kerf, which is more rigid. A dado set is nice, but you can do a lot of that with your router and this glue line blade.

I do tend to write long and in detail, but if it will save you problems and annoyance, it's worth the read.

Thank you for the warm welcome.

Here’s the shop:



It’s not much and is a work in progress, but I’ll get there. Need to get rid of that refrigerator, too.

Funny that you mentioned Woodcraft, we live less than 2 miles away from it and it’s my main go-to for buying BB ply. Their tools selection is nice, but Festool toys are too rich for my blood. Maybe later down the road.


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